The current protests against compulsory retirement at 65 are, no doubt, economically motivated (the meagre pensions of the current system) but also psychological (the awareness of being closer to the end of the road). We don’t know how close, but science has made great advances in the statistical predictability of individual life expectancy based on general health, family history, and the diseases we carry with us.
A year ago, as part of a general medical check-up, I went to a geriatrician who, based on sophisticated models applied to my clinical data, predicted 86 years as the most likely age. I was 76 years old and I was reminded of the indisputable phrase of my philosophy professor: “every day is a step to the grave.” Of course, this goal is not static, but it can get closer in case of senile diseases or accidents along the way.
I don’t know if it was because of these circumstances or because of the Freudian shadows that envelop me every time I hear many political authorities speak with false confidence, but I was reminded of a practice of my Salesian high school: the “exercises of the good death“, which consisted of reflecting on that passage that at 17 seemed so distant and ethereal, as it is today to imagine when YPFB publishes data on gas reserves.
The comedy/drama “The Bucket List,” starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, tackles the problem of what to do if you know the expiration date of existence. The answer of that film is “to indulge in the tastes that we could not indulge in before“, but it is also an invitation to ask ourselves the same question, even without being a millionaire like Nicholson in the film.
Some comedians – humor, Umberto Eco said, is the antidote to the thought of death – suggest: “marry a … lady (I leave the demonym to the reader’s imagination.) Every year will feel like a century.” Other comedians (in a very dark gray mood) suggest that you don’t pay the bills to the doctor who gave you a year to live: then he will be forced to give you another year so that you can honor the debt.
Jokes aside, a few suggestions come to my mind, as ordinary people do: for example, settle outstanding administrative and legal issues. But, if it were the Registry of Assets or the Municipal Land Registry, perhaps 10 years would not be enough.
Then, to reconcile ourselves with the friends of a time from whom life, for whatever reason, has distanced us. I keep the memory of the former minister Carlos Villegas, already ill, who, when he coincided with me in an act of gratitude that the University of La Paz gave us, preceded me in standing up and giving me a hug of reconciliation, regardless of which of the two had “lost the compass” of hydrocarbon policy.
In the same way, why not get rid of material things, especially books, in favor of others who can gain a greater benefit? I have rarely used a wonderful portable telescope that I have just given to my niece Stella, to keep her passion for astronomy alive, just as I hope that Physics students will take advantage of the scientific books that I donated to my institute’s library when I retired.
Maybe some of you have a book to finish writing, a picture to paint, a tree to plant, many photos to order, but surely, we all have a family to share more time with. If you are a believer – and I would like you to be – devote more time to prayer and let yourself, be examined by love, to the point of saying, like Saint Paul to Timothy: “I have run my course, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim 4:7), which in ancient Greek rhymes beautifully: tòn drómon tetéleka, tèn pístin tetéreka.